By Christopher Long
On July 15, 2007, the Phillies celebrated 120+ years of failure and frustration by becoming the first sports franchise to lose 10,000 games. Ever perverse, they followed this achievement by making their first playoffs in 14 years. In 2008, they took 10,000 behind the shed and shot in the back of the head by winning their second World Series, the culmination of a dominant post-season performance.
But was 10,000 ever that big of a deal? It made the Phillies the butt of many jokes (though they delivered the final punchline) but the road to 10,000 was built mostly by all the hard working men in uniform from the late teens into the late-40s when the franchise embarked on an amazing stretch, racking up losing records in all but one season from 1918-1948, and they only went 78-76 in the good year. There are certainly plenty of people still alive with bad memories of that humiliating stretch but for the majority of fans, they´re just lines in the encyclopedia that you skim over on your way to the better stuff.
But was 10,000 ever that big of a deal? It made the Phillies the butt of many jokes (though they delivered the final punchline) but the road to 10,000 was built mostly by all the hard working men in uniform from the late teens into the late-40s when the franchise embarked on an amazing stretch, racking up losing records in all but one season from 1918-1948, and they only went 78-76 in the good year. There are certainly plenty of people still alive with bad memories of that humiliating stretch but for the majority of fans, they´re just lines in the encyclopedia that you skim over on your way to the better stuff.
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